Put it down.

Put it all down.

Stop fighting.

Feel.

It is the way it is.

You did it.

You were scared shitless and you did it.

Breathe.

Breathe, again.

You are here.

You’ve survived…and you’re not diminished one damn bit.

While the voices in your head tell you otherwise,

You chose for you.

Never believe again, even for one second, that you are powerless.

While the voices out there would love for you to believe that you are,

they are wrong.

Be with your self.

Trust your heart.

Let it all go.

Be with,

Stay with,

You.

::

“heart-shaped candlelight” by Zolivier. Some rights reserved

Power
What is it? Who can have it? Who can’t?

The other day, I had a long, lovely conversation with Rachael Maddox. At the end of a long trek by bike across the country, Rachael and her husband had landed in Oakland for a few days, and lucky me got to spend some time with her.

Rachael is beautiful, and her beauty shines both inside and out. She is wise. She is open-hearted. I was touched by her presence.

My time with Rachael opened my mind in an unexpected way, but first,

a small detour:

I was born in the latter part of the 50′s in the United States, a time when most women were housewives, ala Donna Reed (a TV show of the time). While my mother became a single mother in the early 60′s, the majority of women I saw, both in real life and on TV, were housewives.

I grew up with the sense that there would be someone to watch over me, to take care of me, a ‘big-daddy’ kind of sense of the world. Perhaps that’s the big Patriarch out there. After all, the religious traditions I saw espoused a ‘Father in the sky’. My government espoused a ‘Father in Washington’. Most TV shows showed the father as the head of the household making both the money and the decisions.

Looking back it seems odd to me that I would so strongly believe that a male someone, or something, would take care of things, because it was my mother that took care of me, both physically and financially.

Even though I now see and experience (and have for years) that this is not the case, the conditioning is strong. The conditioned mind’s worldview still sees the world this way, or perhaps a better description would be that it hopes the world is this way.

Back to Rachael,

Rachael is more than half my age. Her world view is different, of course, especially because of her age, but also because of her life experience. I don’t want to write of her world view, because that is hers to share. Be sure to read her blog and get to know her. You’ll be glad you did.

What I want to write about is how Rachael and my conversation with her helped me to see things in a new way.

Speaking with Rachael helped to unlock some of this unconscious conditioning about power, and how I unconsciously still hold out hope that someone, most likely a man, will ride in on his powerful horse to save the day, to save me, to save the world.

Many people never have seen this as a possibility.

Speaking with Rachael helped me to see more deeply and clearly that I continue to try to figure out a way to make what I now know is true about my experience (as a woman and the power I know is within me) fit into this cultural structure. It can’t.

This structure is a dream in that it causes us to believe that it is the true nature of reality. The structure exists in our minds, and in the institutions we’ve created with our conditioned minds, minds that believe in scarcity and a hierarchy based on perceived values and worth of different groups of people, and layers of life.

Scarcity and Hierarchy

In a culture where we believe in scarcity and hierarchy, privilege and not-so-privileged, it seems as though power is something held over others, or something where some have it and others don’t. That is how plays out in action in a cultural structure that sees power this way.

In this cultural structure, power is to be wielded over others, offered up by those who have when it is in their interest to do so, and to be adhered to by those who don’t have it.

In this cultural structure, there is a limited amount of power, so if one group has it another doesn’t. If one group decides to step into their power, it seemingly takes away power from others.

Notice that in a structure like this, when we believe what the structure shows us, power from within makes no sense. Even if we feel our own power within, our minds tell us things that support the structure rather than our own experience, because our own internal thought structures have been replicated from the cultural structure in which our minds were conditioned.

In our conditioned minds, power from within, power that is available for all, power that works together, makes no sense and can even seem dangerous to express in this cultural paradigm.

To the conditioned mind, there are few options:

One can acquiesce, consent to it by remaining silent, to the power out there, making one seemingly powerless.

One can join the power out there in beliefs, in actions, in thought, making one seemingly part of.

One can fight it, in actions, in thought, making one feel powerful against.

But to the awakened mind and heart,

one can feel the truth of one’s own internal power and choose from what is true. One can meet the ‘power over’ out there with ‘power from within’.

In very simple terms I use to try to express something that can’t be expressed, ‘power over’ comes from the fear of the conditioned mind; ‘power from within’ comes from realizing the truth of one’s own experience and feeling and expressing the powerful nature of the life that flows from within.

In recent days, I’ve noticed the Occupy Oakland movement showing signs of many of these ways of being with power. While some small bands of people chose to fight the structural power with power against by using violence, the majority of people have been coming from a place of awakened presence, choosing peaceful protest that comes from knowing they choose to no longer acquiesce to a power structure that does not serve its people.

The sands of our culture are shifting.

I know that the only way I can know what is real is what my own heart tells me. And, I know there is no knight riding in to save us.

All that can save us is love, the power of love, the power of the awakened heart. Many years ago, Jimi Hendrix spoke powerful truth when he said, “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”

Letting go of hope and opening the heart to the power of love.

The place I find myself in is truly looking within to feel the power of love within. It’s not a projected or romantic love, the kind of I’ve known in my life. This love is powerful and it can almost feel too big to experience. And,

as wise Rachael writes, ”We are capable of being love that big.”

And, it means one more step, being love that big in action.

Action can be listening. As a grandmother, a woman who has lived many years, I know I hold wisdom. And, one of the wisest things I can do is listen to the wisdom of a younger generation, a generation that sees things differently, a generation that can help us to wake up. And listen to other races and religions. Listen to both women and men.

Action is not silent. For me, remaining silent has been a place of powerlessness. And yet, the action I want to embody is action that comes out of silence. This action is a natural expression of the power of love. Love this big is an active force. Love this big moves us.

“The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot.”  Audre Lorde

There is power in truly wanting to see through your own bullshit.

Since I opened the door to wanting to know about silence, privilege and oppression, so much has been shifting and churning. I am already wiser for this exploration. Your comments have touched raw nerves. My own words are doing the same.

Over the past six days, I kept writing and sitting. Nothing clear would come out. I spoke with my writing partner, Jeanne, and clarity seemed to show up for a bit. But the next morning when it came time to write, fog and confusion, again. Something here doesn’t want to be seen. I don’t want to see it; but, I do. I want to be free.

Silence, privilege and oppression.

Three pretty powerful topics, and I’ve lumped them all together. They are intertwined.

Some of you have asked why I’m exploring this topic. Something is pushing me to see what I don’t want to see. I want to know what keeps me silent. I want to know where I am blind. I want to know where I am ignorant. I want to see what I haven’t been willing to see. I want to be free. And, it is foggy. It feels like something painful is coming to light.

I know that what stays hidden, what stays in the dark, hurts us all.

A few nights ago,

after opening this can of who knows what, anger and grief finally came pouring out. I kept yelling, over and over, out loud, very out loud, from someplace deep inside, “I don’t understand men’s silence.” “I don’t understand.” “How can you stay silent about what happens to women, when there are women in your life you love? Your mother, your sister, me?”

I was saying it to him, my partner…and at the same time, I was saying it to all the world’s men.

After so many years wondering what it would be like to simply say what had been kept inside for so long, I experienced it. It wasn’t clumsy at all. It was clear. It was alive. It was powerful. It came from someplace deep within my body.

The anger was a deep and boiling. It’s been cooking for some time. It burned its way through. It burned itself out of me. After it subsided, grief began to spill out. A deep, deep grief about the way things are in the world. So much grief.

But as everything came tumbling out of my body, the rage, the grief and the tears, I also felt something inside me become stronger. It was as if I found a part of myself that I had lost a long time ago. It’s the part that I silenced.

It is still a bit hazy,

but I’m going to try to write it in hopes it will become more clear.

I don’t understand my partner’s silence. He is a good man. I love him. I feel so much anger and so much love. It was a sign that something was up in me, something coming up to be seen through, something that was ready to be set free.

There is an old, worn out relationship between me and men. In opening the door to seeing my complacency and silence, I see even more clearly how these things are fueled by my conditioned loyalty with men, especially the men in my life that hold power. The men in my life who hold power are white men. Educated men. Middle-class men. Men I love.

If you asked them, they might not feel powerful. In fact, I bet they don’t feel powerful. So many men have said they feel powerless in this culture. Yet, in relationship to me, they seem powerful. They seem to hold the power. What’s that about?

As a girl, I learned I held no power. Small body. Big men. No way I could hold my own.

As a girl, I learned my role was to take care of men, and to try to help them feel good about themselves.

As a girl, I learned to be silent about the things they did that didn’t feel right to me, that didn’t feel good.

As a girl, I learned to stay silent: silent = safe.

As a girl, this was survival.

As a woman, it is no longer survival, it is conditioning, habitual conditioning that covers old fears. old betrayals and very real oppression.

The conditioning played itself out until, one day, the urge to know the truth, to be free of the conditioning, became stronger than the urge to stay safe. As Lorde wrote, we can incite our own learning, if we follow the urge for truth.

So what is the relationship between silence, privilege and power?

You may already know this. I didn’t know, until these past few days, how they have played out in my life.

Over the last few days, every time I tried to write about this, I would feel sick to my stomach. Something really uncomfortable was coming up. I could only see fog, and writing didn’t clear it like it usually does.

The morning after so much anger rose up and burned out of me, I went for a walk in the woods across the street from our home. I could hear the birds calling, the water rushing down the stream, and the rustle of the early morning breeze. As I walked deeper into the park, I could feel the earth alive. I could feel her holding me, Mother earth. I felt so much love from everything alive around me. In that holding, more grief tumbled out. The tears literally poured from my eyes.

As the grief subsided, I could feel something shift. It was as if a distancing had happened, a distancing between me and men. Then I saw it clearly.

My silence earns me privilege, and it costs me my power.

Let me say that again. My silence earns me privilege, and it costs me my power. I give away my power to have privilege.

I may feel I have power, but as long as that power is based on a privilege that is hollow at its core, the power is hollow, too.

Any privilege is hollow at its core.

Privilege is not the way Spirit works. It is not the way of soul. It is not the way of the Earth. And it is not the way of the Mother of us all.

Privilege is the way of patriarchy.

It’s an exchange. A pact. A very unconscious pact. Unconscious in me, until now.

This pact between privilege, power and silence upholds this system of domination and control.

Yuck.

As the tears poured from my eyes, I felt grief rise up and leave. I felt a letting go of this pact of silence. I felt my own autonomy grow. I felt a solidness in myself take hold.

I want to be free, a woman liberated from her own silence.

…

This is part two in a series of posts on silence, privilege and oppression. You can read part one, here. I don’t know how many more there will be. Thank you for walking beside me through this exploration. I would love to know your reactions, comments and experiences with these very tender places.

Blessings, Julie

In the 21st Century, power will not change the nature of women, women will change the nature of power. ~ Bella Abzug

Power is only a Word

Power is only a word, but it’s a word with a sordid past…and a very sordid present. It has a lot of baggage.

Power, as we know it today, dominates. Silences. Abuses.

Power is abused, too. At some point, power became power-over.

Somewhere, at some time, in the ‘rules’ of the human world, a rule was written about power, men and women. A rule was made that says, men have power over women. Somehow we, men and women, seem to believe in this story.

The recent, deeply disturbing, widely broadcast story of Sakineh Mohammadie Ashtiani’s imminent death by stoning, once again, brought the tyrannical abuses of power-over into the bright light of our awareness.

A few days after the international outcry about both her death sentence and the method the Iranian government threatened to use, the archaic practice of stoning, I still couldn’t shake the visceral anger, sadness and powerlessness I felt. This was such blatant, abuse of power; power so egregious, that I shudder to contemplate just how often and how much this kind of sadistic power is used against those who are completely vulnerable to it.

In the swirl of these emotions, I felt a very real sensation of complete vulnerability as a woman. Here was this beautiful woman, waiting in an Iranian prison for a death sentence to be carried out in a most barbaric and painful way. And, here I was, sitting safely in my home, but acutely feeling an intense vulnerability, as if there was no separation between us.

Then it hit me, there is no separation between us. In a very real collective sense, what is done to any part of life, is done to us all. If we are aware of the deeper feelings that move through the human soul, we know this.

On this same level, we all feel the pain of abusive power, oppression and misogyny whether we are the abuser or victim.

As I sat with these feelings, I suddenly felt a tenderness open up that was deep. It was painful, vulnerable and raw. It filled every part of every thing.

I wrote about this tenderness, about a revolution of tenderness in the first post of this three-part series on Tenderness, Power and Grace.

Soft Power

I know many women who push their power away because the only power they’ve known has been used against them. I’m one of those women.

And yet, my power keeps pulling me to it. This is a different kind of power than power-over. It comes from deep in the bowels of my femaleness. It feels rooted to the earth. It feeds my soul. It nurtures my creativity. It is the source of my deep and abiding love for all of life.

There is an unwritten, unspoken, yet very palpable threat of violence against women if we do step fully into the power we know is contained within our beings.

I feel this threat of violence. Yet, this power must come to life, regardless. This is soft power, a tremendous tenderness toward all of life. It is a great compassionate love. It compels me to drop even more deeply into this place of fierce tenderness.

Of course we’re coming to the brink of extinction of so many forms of life, including our own – our way for so long has been to dominate, control and destroy the life principle, namely that of woman. She is the embodiment of the life principle.

What would life be like if power-over, once again, became simply power, the power to be able – to express, to create, to be, to act? I don’t know, but I do know it will have something to do with love. It will come from not rejecting anything, because what we reject and condemn in another, is the same as rejecting ourselves, and no peace can ever come from that.

The Power of Woman

This is the power of woman: to love everything, without exception. As the embodiment of the life principle, she holds it all, without division. This power can only come when she no longer believes she must be everything to everyone. It can only come when she comes home to herself, with love for all the beauty she is. When she sees the value of herself, she can know the fullest power that is available to her as woman.

How does woman do that when she faces the immensity of oppression, degradation and misogyny?

By turning to look at another woman, to look deeply in another woman’s heart, to see within her what she can’t see in herself. By turning to the earth, to look deeply in the earth’s heart.

By opening our hearts to earth, to feel the incredible suffering this beautiful, living, pulsing beauty is enduring, and at the same time seeing her strength, her capacity to heal, her desire to continue to provide a home for all of life.

Woman is tied to the earth more deeply than man. When we open to her power to heal and regenerate, we can know our own capacity to heal and regenerate.

Anne Baring speaks of women:

There is a danger that in seeking power and equality with men in order for her voice and her creative gifts to be recognised, woman may unconsciously reject the very foundation which gives, through her millennial experience as custodian of life, something of supreme importance to say.

Can we…

There is no question that women are changing the nature of power. We see it occurring everywhere. As we do…

Can we encourage each other to come forth into our power?

Can we hold each other in supreme love and compassion as we travel this sacred path together?

Can we stand firm in the knowledge that we are worthy of the sacred nature we know is at the core of our womanhood?

Can we love those parts of ourselves that feel so difficult to love?

Can we know, in our experience, that we are all mothers to all the world’s children?

Can we love others with the fierce tenderness that might melt the deepest darkest hate into the most brilliant light of love?

And, you?

I’d love to know your feelings and thoughts about power and women; about what is emerging through us; about your story with power.

This is the second post in a series of three on tenderness, power and grace. All three posts are part of the Summer of Love Invitational, where the lovely Mahala Mazerov has invited bloggers to write about loving kindness.

“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” ~Jimi Hendrix

Jimi was pretty wise. Life is Love and Love is Life. There is no difference. The force that creates is love, it is life force, and it is nothing like the pretty picture we humans have been painted. It is powerful beyond measure, and it scares the hell out of us.

All we know of power in our minds is what we’ve been conditioned to believe. This conditioning is what we have been ‘taught’ by others, by their actions and how they have treated us. We, in turn, have ingested this conditioned worldview about what power is and the effects of power.

When I speak of power to women, of stepping into our power, of becoming more powerful, many women immediately resist the idea of owning their own power. When they speak of the reasons why, it is because they see power as a bad thing. They see power as something that oppresses, degrades, imprisons and destroys. They speak of the way power has been used in their lifetimes to maintain a status quo that keeps an elite group of people powerful, while denying vital life-sustaining resources to others. They cringe at the thought of being powerful if it means they must be like those they have witnessed wielding power.

For us to step into our power as women, we must look to something else to know what true power is, and that something is Life, a power that flows out from within.

When I think of life force, the first thing that comes to mind is a seedling growing out of the ground. Imagine what force it takes for the tiny seedling to push its way through the dirt, through everything that stands in its way of reaching the light. The force that fuels the seedling to reach for the sun is Life finding its way.

Life finding its way is power, power from within, power rising up out of the dark, the power of life exploding into existence.

If you look at the dictionary definitions, there are a ton of definitions for the word power. Words can only point to something, and when we try to use words with each other, more often than not what a word points to for me might be very (or even slightly) different for you. In addition, many words hold memories of our experiences that we attached to the word, and with a loaded word like power, this is especially true.

If we, as women, step into our power, we must first be wise and conscious of our intentions and of the source of our power. We could simply imitate what we’ve seen in this male-centric world, but then we would simply be creating more of what we already have.

Power over others, the way we have been conditioned to see power used, serves to sustain separation and suffering. Utilizing power to keep others powerless ultimately keeps us all powerless and separate. Just look at our world today. The world of human beings is filled with separation, loneliness, and violence. This is the kind of power that keeps many women from wanting to be powerful, or even believing they can be powerful.

Instead, let’s engage our wisdom to tap into what we instinctively and intuitively know about power. When we consciously look at what we know to be true in our experience, we bring this knowing into wisdom, and that sources generative power from within.

Women have been the power source and creative agents of the continuation of the human species from the beginning. Without a womb, humans would not exist.

I have had the glorious opportunity to witness the birth of two of my grandchildren. I have two daughters and they are both now mothers. To witness labor and birth is to witness true power, the power of Life giving birth to itself.

In labor, a woman surrenders to the powerful forces of Life finding its way into life, into light from out of the dark. If you have given birth or have witnessed it, you know what I mean. If the mother-to-be surrenders and works with the powerful forces that are working within her, Life will do what it does so well…bring the new baby into existence. If she struggles with the process, something we humans do on a daily basis, the process can be more painful, but the process continues anyway, in spite of her struggling.

Life force is always flowing, finding its way. If we don’t align with it, life still flows but we find it much more painful, in so many ways.

When we align with the force of life, we are no longer trying to resist our soul’s natural expression. This life force is our creativity. When we express it, without resistance, what we express is beautiful and powerful beyond measure.

This power frightens us because our rational mind is not in control of it. We want to control it but we can’t. When we try to control it by resisting it, we only make ourselves sick. Consider how painful childbirth could be if the mother-to-be actively resisted the baby coming into being.

The really important piece here is to learn to trust this power, this expression, this creative life force. To have faith in it is to surrender to the natural expression of power, a power that sustains all of life.

If you have never birthed a baby, please don’t listen to the cultural forces that tell you you’re not a mother, and you can’t be fulfilled without being a mother. When I use this example in courses I teach, it can be emotionally difficult for women who have not birthed a child. We, as women, must come to honor the fact that we are all mothers. Women can birth so much more than babies, and we do it all the time. We can mother more than just our own physical babies, and the ability to truly love all of life unconditionally is the power that flows out from within.

I have used the example of childbirth purposely here, because women’s bodies know this process. A woman’s body, regardless of whether or not she ever physically gives birth to a child, contains the intelligent substance and process to create and grow new life and to bring it into being. This powerful process is completely mysterious to our rational minds. Our minds will never figure out how this works…hence the mystery. But, when we honor our bodies, and the intelligent mystery within, we align with the life force that engages this mysterious creative process inherently available to women.

Knowing this and experiencing it within brings wisdom, wisdom that is needed NOW.

By aligning with the power within, by this mysterious life force that is our creativity, we are capable of growing and birthing that which wants to be created, that life force that is finding its way. This is the power we must step into as women. This is the power of life-sustaining creativity. It’s generative in that it supports life, nurtures the mystery that is life, that is love, that is the most powerful force because it is existence itself.

Can you imagine how things might shift if we realized this power within that is yearning to flow out into the world?

Can you imagine what might be created if we held all the world in the center of our hearts, hearts that are aligned with this creativity?

This weekend, my partner Jeff and I took a few days off and traveled down to Pacific Grove, a quaint town nestled between Monterey and Carmel. We needed some time to just be. We walked along the beach, slept, ate, walked, talked, read, and watched Harry Potter movies (a first for me!). We had a beautiful time together.

Whenever I take the time to simply slow down and rest, I find that playful place inside me that seems to get little time in my day-to-day life. It’s one of the things I want to bring more fully into the day-to-day, that playful side that.

Yesterday, after deliciously sleeping in, we stopped by a little coffee/book house on the main street of Pacific Grove, Lighthouse Avenue. I was wearing my Kali Yantra , a silver necklace Jeff gave me to wear on my trip to India last year. As we entered the coffee house, two women caught my eye. They were deep in conversation, but something about them spoke to me. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I could feel a connection with them.

I purchased my tea, and as I walked away from the coffee bar, one of the women and I caught a shared glance and we smiled. She then spoke first and mentioned my necklace, noting that she was wearing a pair of earrings that matched. I went over to them and we began a conversation. She asked me the name of the Goddess that the yantra represented, and I responded by telling her of Kali: that Kali is the Goddess of creation and destruction, and that in images she is shown with a necklace of skulls around her neck, and that she is misunderstood. She isn’t about death, but about the death of the ego, of the beauty of people finding who and what they are. “Her perpetual dance of cosmic bliss plays out through the eons as the creation and dissolution of worlds within worlds. Yet God, in the feminine form of the Mother – as the Absolute made Immanent – is ready to shower Her love and affection on any who care to turn their gaze toward Her fiery heart.” (source)

As I spoke of this divine symbol of love, the other woman said something about how important this was for her to remember. She then began to cry sweet, soft tears that ran down her cheeks. She was beautiful in this moment of recognition of something deeply important for her. The beauty was in the flash of truth that she felt. Something spoke to her deep within. What exactly we said didn’t really matter. What I witnessed, and treasure, is the flash of knowing that can come to us at any second if we are open to what might meet us.

I had just written the prior post about the amazingness of women, and I once again thought of this idea, that there is such beauty, strength and pure love in women that is ripe for us to once again reclaim. This flash of recognition came to the three of us because we were open to each other and to discovering what it was that drew us to each other.

We shared a few more words about women and how we need to acknowledge the tears of truth in ourselves and in each other. And then I said goodbye. I thought of these two beautiful women all day, and felt such gratitude for what they shared and what I witnessed.

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” ~Einstein

Over the last few weeks, I have been struck by the way in which our culture looks at knowledge versus wisdom. It seems to be that many in our culture value knowledge over wisdom. By wisdom, I mean the understanding that comes from life experiences and how we grow and change by what we experience. Wisdom comes as we respond to the world and our experiences in it. Reflection on these experiences, as well, can deepen our sense of who we are and the vehicle for change we wish to be.

As we shift out of the patriarchal culture and into something new (what seems to be a more masculine/feminine balanced worldview), the way in which we hold wisdom is shifting, too. Valuing our life experience, and the wisdom that comes from it, is another way in which living an important question can enhance discovery of what is true on a personal level.

Maria Shriver penned an article for Newsweek last Fall. I just came across it recently and found it to be insightful with regard to “What it means to be Female?”. In the article Maria states,

“I now have a new definition of power. It’s passing on what we have learned and creating meaningful change through these experiences. That’s the kind of power that truly matters.”

As a woman, how do you value your wisdom? What wisdom have you gained from the life you have lived? Do you share it with others? How does this wisdom empower you? What kind of meaningful change might you create through the experiences you have had and the wisdom you have gleaned?

Share your responses here. I look forward to reading them!

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Ghandi’s words are quoted often, speaking to their powerful simplicity and simple power.

Amy Lenzo, on her Beauty Dialogues blog, shared a video from KarmaTube. Watch it and see the power one person has to create change.

How might you be the change you wish to see?